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WSJ. MAGAZINE October 25, 2012, 2:41 p.m. ET

Progressive DressIssey Miyake has spent a lifetime pushing the limits of fashion. The forward- thinking designer explores what's next

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By DANA THOMAS

FOR ISSEY MIYAKE, who remains one of the most experimental and enduring

designers in fashion, truly great design goes beyond changing the way we dress or how we

decorate our homes—it's about liberating the mind and igniting ideas. In 1965, Miyake

arrived in Paris from Japan to study haute couture. And for a few years, he did just that.

In his classes at the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, he learned how to tailor

a perfect jacket and sew a perfect cocktail dress. It was all very refined, bourgeois and

expected. Then came the Paris strikes of 1968, when French students protested

everything that represented the postwar establishment. For Miyake, the riots were an

awakening. "I realized that the future was in making clothing for the many, not the few,"

says the 74-year-old. "I wanted to make clothing that was as universal as jeans and T-

Photography by Tetsuya Miura

A CUT ABOVE | Miyake and his design team photographed at his studio in Tokyo.

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shirts."

For more than 40 years, Miyake has dedicated himself to the notion that fashion can be

universal and affordable while still being innovative. Among his achievements are Pleats

Please, a relatively inexpensive, easy-care line of colorful clothes inspired by the pleated

tunics of ancient Greece—this fall, Taschen is publishing Pleats Please Issey Miyake,

celebrating the line's 20th anniversary— and A-POC, an even less costly line of clothes

made out of a single piece of lightweight knitwear that the customer can alter with

scissors.

Miyake's impact on the design world goes

far beyond the insular confines of avant-

garde fashion. He's created costumes for

choreographer William Forsythe and

designed the black turtlenecks that were

Apple impresario Steve Jobs's signature.

(Jobs would specify the neck and sleeve

lengths down to the millimeter and order

hundreds at a time.) In 1999, he allowed

his friend, the leading Chinese artist Cai

Guo-Qiang, to sprinkle gunpowder in the

shape of dragons on an assortment of

Miyake clothes and then ignite them, burning traces of the images on the fabric. While

Miyake may see himself as a creator, he once said, "I'm disturbed when people call me an

artist. When I make something, it's only half finished. When people use it—for years and

years—then it is finished."

In 2007, he opened Japan's first design

museum, 21_21 Design Sight (a play on

20/20 vision) with the architect Tadao

Ando, a longtime friend. "Design is so

much a part of Japanese life, but we had

no museum where we could showcase new

work and where young artists and

designers could come into contact with

design from other places," he says of the

initiative. "The future of creativity lies in

fostering traditional handcrafts while

using new technology to make them

modern." To this end, he founded a consortium called the Reality Lab and two years ago

launched their first project: 132 5. Issey Miyake, a line of clothing and home accessories,

each made of a single piece of recycled polyester folded in precise geometric shapes—like

origami. When not in use, the items collapse and become perfectly flat and two-

dimensional.

Born and raised in Hiroshima, Miyake

discovered the empowering effect of

design in a way he could never have

imagined. On his way to a class trip at the

age of 7, he witnessed the dropping of the

atomic bomb. "I can't say that any one

experience makes you who you are,"

Miyake once said. "I can say that I have

always been a person who doesn't look

back and who is always thinking of

tomorrow." A few years later, after

suffering a bone-marrow disease that left

him with a permanent limp, Miyake turned to the optimism of design that was cropping

up around a city being built anew—particularly that of Isamu Noguchi, who created what

are now known as the Peace Bridges in Hiroshima. "I experienced great design as a

youngster, not as an object of desire but, physically, as something to be used," he has said.

He studied graphic design at Tama Art University in Tokyo before moving to Paris to

attend fashion school in 1965. There, he apprenticed under Guy Laroche and Hubert de

Givenchy, whose houses made glamorous dresses for women like Audrey Hepburn and

the Duchess of Windsor. Following a brief move to New York to work for Geoffrey Beene,

Miyake returned to Tokyo in 1970 to open his own design studio. He began, he says, "to

Courtesy Miyake Design Studio

SHAPE SHIFTER | Miyake's inaugural 1999 A-POCrunway show at the École des Beaux-arts in Paris

Enlarge Image

Nikolas koenig/Trunkarchive.com

An accompanying exhibition of Miyake's designs atthe Fondation Cartier that same year

Enlarge Image

Courtesy Miyake Design Studio

A step-by-step demonstration of the seamless A-POCfabric being used to create multiple garments.

Enlarge Image

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explore the idea of making clothing from a single piece of cloth—the relationship and

space between cloth and the human body." His conceptual fashion, which he presented in

Paris in 1973, caused a mini-revolution during an otherwise staid French fashion week.

Despite 25 more years of critical accolades, Miyake continued to question his motivations.

Though he had dedicated himself to "making clothes for the people, not to be a top

couturier in the French tradition," he still felt that he had become a "society designer," to

his disappointment. His response, in 1999, was to step back from his ready-to-wear

design duties, handing the reins to one of his young designers in order to focus on a new

project: A-POC, which stands for A Piece of Cloth, a revolutionary seamless tubelike

fabric. The idea was to create something affordable that customers could easily alter

themselves. A-POC was unveiled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1999: Two dozen

models walked down a runway, all connected by a long tube of fabric, and received an

uproarious ovation. New York's Museum of Modern Art acquired a similar piece—the first

industrial product by a clothing designer in its permanent collection.

In recent years, Miyake has received his share of awards, including, in 2006, the

prestigious Kyoto Prize, for advances in science, culture and human spirit; in 2010, the

Order of Culture, presented by the Emperor of Japan; and, earlier this year, London's

Design Museum fashion award, for 132 5. Issey Miyake, beating out Kate Middleton's

wedding gown and the blockbuster "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" exhibit at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art. While Miyake is proud of these honors, they don't define

him. He still works with and teaches young people, telling them, he says, "To be curious,

explore the world, respect tradition, experiment with technology, embrace modernity and

never look back." When asked what he is most proud of in his career, he laughs and

responds: "My next project."

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